1995: The Decider

Having been knocked out of the Cup as usual by Teignmouth,
Exeter made it to the five-board final of the Major Plate in good
style, due to some vigorous work on the top boards by Brian Hewson
and Peter Lane. But at the Birmingham final Brian soon drew,
and so did Pete on board two, and Dave on board three, and Chris on
board four...Of course if Richard drew on five, we would all have
to sit down again and play a half-hour game!

So how was Richard doing? His colleagues were used to seeing him
in dire time trouble, but there seemed to be other problems on the
board... — DR

Richard doesn't usually play the Sicilian but undoubtedly
recognised the position as kin to the Maroczy Bind, a formation
where Black often struggles for counterplay.

16...Nc5 17. Qe2 Bf6 18. e5

With hindsight, this attempt to force the issue looks too early,
and possibly breaks with the wrong Pawn. But at the time I'm
sure it was not easy to look at the massed White King's-side pieces
without some anxiety.

Chess Quotes

" It is often supposed that, apart from their 'extraordinary powers of memory', expert players have phenomenal powers of calculation. The beginner believes that experts can calculate dozens of moves ahead and he will lose to them only because he cannot calculate ahead so far. Yet this is utter nonsense. From my own experience I can say that grandmasters do not do an inordinate amount of calculating. Tests (notably de Groot's experiments) supports me in this claim.